The man with the talking head

THERE are those who would suggest that a number of international rock stars (and quite a lot of humble, earnest musicians) owe Brian Eno a debt they can never really repay, for he has a startling effect on the artists he chooses to associate with.

His short measures of influence and large doses of instinct can change a band's faltering output into commercial success Eno points them in a direction they would have had trouble conceptualising, never mind realising. Ask U2, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, John Cale, Bryan Ferry et al, and they will probably answer in unison Brian Eno is a genius. Or as Bono says in this book of ideas, "A lot of British rock bands went to Art School. U2 went to Brian Eno."

A Year With Swollen Appendices is Brian Eno's 1995 diary. Sounds boring? Fear not, intrepid reader, for Eno is not your average person, which makes the diary as invigorating and enthralling a read as you could possibly wish for.

Its success, however, depends on whether or not you care for the minutiae of Eno's (slightly edited) personal and work related life. It is, therefore, a book with strictly defined parameters in terms of audience appreciation. Fans of the entire output of Richard Clayderman need not apply.

As a collection of "ideas, observations, admirations, speculations, and grumbles", the diary works surprisingly well. Eno's work rate is astonishingly high. He jumbles recording projects with parenting, his work for the War Child charity with constant e-mail correspondence, his installation work with essay and short story writing, his love of food with his appendices.

To the disorganised mind, even several of these would be too much to allocate time and thought to, but Eno appears to have mastered the art of intellectual juggling, effortlessly slotting one in and the other out of cerebral space.

Inevitably, he writes extremely well and cogently on all manner of diverse subjects outside the framework of the diary. Topics range from the Bosnian crisis, shamanism, celebrities, Duchamp's Fountain, and unthinkable futures ("Nearly all the conspiracy theories you ever heard were actually true that the world really is being run by 150 malevolent men with extremely nasty prejudices", and "The set of Terminator 9 is wrecked by a pressure group of industrial robots who object to this stereotyping", are but two amusing examples), to his pet project, computer generated music.

In black and white, it all sounds too dry and recherche for such an engaging and thought provoking read, but it's actually the exact opposite. For every theory about national defence policies there is a recipe ("Flatulent dish 20 cloves of roasted garlic turned into a paste, mixed with pureed carrots and pumpkin oil, served with artichokes and kohl rabi.

Look forward to a day of fragrant farting"), and for every occasionally dull e-mail there are comments about famous pop stars ("Dolores O'Riordan has a nasal sexiness, a firmness that is very appealing") and, curiously quite often, bottoms ("glorious, wobbling, kissable softness").

Like most of Eno's intuitive production techniques and music, this diary mutates from wilful self absorption into a form of drifting self expression that anyone with an open mind can partake of and enjoy. It's all very astute and genuinely clever, and if you haven't yet tapped into the man's multifaceted, intricately interwoven creativity, then now is the time to do so. {CORRECTION} 96052800054